The testing of printed circuit boards is a common procedure, especially where high reliability circuitry is required. Many automated systems exist for checking out printed circuit boards. A number of these systems include electrically stressing the board circuitry while simultaneously thermally stressing it. Typically, the test results are evaluated and the board becomes accepted or rejected.
Oftentimes, failures occur after a board is accepted and an evaluation of such failures would be expedited if the original test results could be easily stored and accessed from a computer.